Saturday, April 9, 2011

The Ditch Witch

The Ditch Witch of Santa Fe, Erika Wanenmacher, is mostly an artist, and her website focuses on that aspect almost entirely -- though the occult themes in much of her work are evident. I had seen her cards around town but based on her website it didn't look like I was overly interested in her stuff. However, in a weird turn of events that happened last September, I wound up seeing one of her art shows in which one of my own spells had managed to become a key piece of the exhibit, and this in turn led me to visit her shop.
The Ditch Witch store is in a shared building, kind of a "rustic" (to put it nicely) L-shaped artists complex, with a parking lot that still leaves me unsure as to whether it's just dirt, or just really dirty. The Ditch Witch is in the cell on the right end as you come in. The frontmost room of the section seems to be work by another artist. But in the dark, slightly dirty-looking back room (everything inside is designed in unfinished wood to give it that "Old Santa Fe" kind of look that things in New Mexico have the misfortune to be modeled on) you can see the Ditch Witch's crafts -- mostly bottle spells using found bottles and objects from the local ditches. She does also have, however, some small baskets of handcrafted incense powders, magical sand and curios, and some glass encased candles made with her own labels. She seems to only work positive magic, with something of a Wiccan tone about it (lots of elemental stuff and pentagrams) and many of the intents focus on things like 'balancing.' Folk magic type candles I saw were Road Opener and Hummingbird. She has a small library -- I believe meant for her personal use -- of spellbooks including things like the Encyclopedia of 5,000 Spells and works of that nature, and on top of the cabinet she sells 'vintage' incense burners and candle holders rescued from second hand stores. She seems to take cash-only.
If Erika is not there, then you're out of luck as far as visiting her shop. It's not clear to me whether she's got regular hours, since the sales don't really seem to be her main purpose behind the business. But all of that comes together to give her shop probably the most olde-tyme feel I've found of any magical supply place visited to date. Probably worth checking out if you're in Santa Fe.

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